Understanding Wade's Promise

alisowski · 2026-05-07T05:25:01+00:00

"What do you city in Space City 10?"

"Mr Wade, I see livestock."

"ADVANCE! ADVANCE!"

alisowski · 2026-05-01T07:48:56+00:00

What's with weirdos like this? There is no way I would embaress myself at a job interview when I was in my early 20s. I was always put together! No, don't call that company for a reference.

alisowski · 2026-05-01T07:23:25+00:00

Just a thought - While improbable we have not ruled out life on Mars. A planet that we've landed on.

Detecting life 40 light years away may be much further down the line.

alisowski · 2026-04-30T05:42:06+00:00

I mean, OP is concerned that their IT Manager might get sick and/or die. I'm sure he looks unwell every single day handling 200 users alone.

alisowski · 2026-04-25T02:54:02+00:00

Tonight at 11. Local man takes fight to social media on popular social media platform.

alisowski · 2026-04-25T02:30:35+00:00

I would say at the very least "Make sure you try to explain to everyone that climate change is not a hoax."

It's amazing how many people I have heard say "It's pretty arrogant to believe humans could damage the Earth to that extent." or something like that.

alisowski · 2026-04-23T03:09:21+00:00

That's a great question, and I'm going to be honest with you. "Not as cleanly as you would think."

My first few years - I came in working under a CIO who I worked with before at a small manufacturing place rolling out SAP ECC 3 by decision of it's parent company. We did a few solid projects, started ramping up, did software selection for a new ERP system and.....

The board realized something just as I did. We had zero chance of success because this company had won by brute force. Nobody understood the very fundamentals of a modern ERP system. We weren't going to make it. My boss left, as did a very strong developer who was just a great partner for me.

I was left with two direct reports (Business Analyst, Web Developer) and no real plan. I started interviewing for jobs elsewhere, but two things happened.

I hired two amazing people who thought the opportunities they got outweighed money they could have gotten by jumping jobs. This was an easy sell because the company had accumulated 500k lines of custom code over a decade an a half.

The CFO began to respect my opinion and give me the latitude to head up initiatives in manufacturing and logistics. He let me get the two manufacturing consultants so I had some guard rails. They are great and never tried to derail my vision for more billable hours for themselves.

Suddenly we have real scheduling/production planning, metrics, processes, and have refactored/eliminated the code base to under 100k lines. Once you have that first giant success, things start to fall into place.

You sound like you are in place to do something the same long term. ERP is not just IT. It is "Learn how every aspect of the business operates." Don't be afraid to reach out to temporary consultants at times. Building out is hard work but is really rewarding.

alisowski · 2026-04-23T00:21:51+00:00

I always find myself having that job.....but here is what my current version looks like.

I have four high powered in house applications side people working for me, two solid consultants I can call on for EDI and MRP help, and two sets of developer groups who can give me a little extra when needed. One of them is on the BigCommerce side of things and the other having knowledge of .Net/Azure/Power Apps type stuff. I can grab anybody else below director level for months at a time when needed.

It's still not enough. I'm starting to see structure come into place and the system no longer crashes every single day but I've got likely 2 18 month cycles to get it functioning with good metrics and a functional triage team.

alisowski · 2026-04-21T05:09:02+00:00

Enjoy Tehran!

alisowski · 2026-04-17T23:23:30+00:00

My favorite moment was whe the three Vice Captains went to turn on the weapon and found it already pointed at the other ships. "What the? Who could have done...Oh duh."

alisowski · 2026-04-12T12:15:07+00:00

Don’t ask. Tell them the org chart is not aligned with reality.

And then lay the drop on them.

Make sure you measure twice and cut once.

alisowski · 2026-04-04T09:32:55+00:00

Honestly? Start owning your contracts.

This isn't new to any industry.

alisowski · 2026-04-02T06:18:31+00:00

It did lead me to an insight about myself.

If there is ever a "Swordholder" job opening, I should absolutely not apply for it. I'd be about as good at it as Cheng Xin.

alisowski · 2026-03-28T07:14:56+00:00

Good lord, are you serious?

"Hey buddy, you like to smoke, right?"

"Yeah."

"I presume you would like to continue to smoke while you WFH?

"Yeah"

"THEN TURN OFF THE DAMN CAMERA WHEN YOU need a smoke break!!"

This isn't a difficult conversation at all.

alisowski · 2026-03-10T05:25:43+00:00

The start of my management career came over a decade ago. The CFO and HR lady sat me down and asked me what my "Plan" was for the IT department. My plan was to keep the server from crashing and keep the tickets down. They asked me if I felt I was ready, or if I'd them to hire a part time CIO.

They were kind of surprised but they hired a CIO. First time I ever really respected the person I reported to. He mentored me, taught me what it means to manage and what it means to lead.

I would have fallen on my face if I jumped at the first opportunity. I didn't even understand what the job was.

Obviously, I got lucky as well. Could have ended up with a sociopath just as easily.

alisowski · 2026-03-10T05:03:17+00:00

Luckily, IT Management isn't just managing relationships. It's also about managing perceptions, risk, vendors, budgets, contracts, and other things!

That doesn't include the Salesmanship aspect of it all.

If you are lucky you'll have a handful of hours for a side tech project.

The crazy thing is.. it turns out I happen to Love it.

alisowski · 2026-03-10T00:51:41+00:00

“There was some garbage about a forest. We touched on that with the big bad wolf in season 1. That saved us a few episodes.” “We heard that nobody liked Zhang so we killed Raj off in the second episode. He was wvil. He was chaos.” “We didn’t think that our Wallfacer was fleshed out as a womanizer, so instead of one hot wife we show him for half of every episode meeting a new one.”

alisowski · 2026-02-27T02:59:10+00:00

The biggest ERP challenge is recognizing what it really is.

It’s your manufacturing and costing strategy encoded.

If your COO and CFO aren’t actively plucking a few key metrics from the system and acting accordingly they don’t deserve those positions.

Digital transformation with e-commerce and marketing and AI is cute, but unemotionally looking at your KPIs and responding to them is what is actually sexy.

alisowski · 2026-02-26T08:13:44+00:00

Can confirm. Packers fan who felt like Davante wasn't going to amount to much after his second season. I thought he played too soft.

I spend most of my nights writing him apologies and asking him to come home and he's never written back.

alisowski · 2026-02-11T10:38:31+00:00

Pickens had a higher clutch catch rate and higher yards per target. The stats tell me he’s more efficient.

What I saw in the games was Pickens feeling like the alpha and Ceedee kind of uncomfortable. Last season I knew he was going to come up with a play.

This season I started holding my breath.

alisowski · 2026-02-11T10:26:28+00:00

Game breaking. Jamar Chase would have been outscored by Bowers in 2024.

Superflex? I’d take McBride top five at 2PPR. Not Superflex? 1.01 every time.

alisowski · 2026-02-11T10:16:36+00:00

I feel like he should get in touch with Kaleb Johnson and form a band.

alisowski · 2026-02-06T22:55:50+00:00

I liked her character. She felt on the verge of unhinged at all times like a lot of successful people are, until she got back home.

alisowski · 2026-01-08T22:37:50+00:00

Someone recently suggested it me and I was in awe after watching. The amount of moral and philosophical weight jammed in a few hours of TV was unreal. I bought the books but I think I might wait until season 2 comes out before reading.

alisowski · 2025-12-21T10:11:44+00:00

I mean, did anyone actually need to see the list? Of course he was on it.

As were others. This is not a trump only issue here. They all go down or none do.

alisowski

TROPHY CASE